Inside the Stylised World of Choctaw Casino: How Aggressive Keeps Raising the Stakes
Aggressive and agency partner TRG’s latest campaign for Choctaw Casinos & Resorts is a stunning, high-concept visual odyssey that redefines what casino advertising can be.
The new spot blends fashion-forward lighting, immersive camera choreography, and jaw-dropping in-camera effects. It’s a breathless journey through gaming floors, concerts, spas and restaurants, all frozen in time at the precise moment before the win.
As one of the largest casino brands in the Southern US, Choctaw reaches millions of visitors each year, with its advertising stretching across the entire region from Oklahoma to Houston. “What Ifs”, the latest campaign, was designed to match that scale — not just in production value, but in visual ambition.
This is just the latest in a long-running collaboration between TRG and Aggressive, one that has seen the brand’s visual world evolve from surreal studio shoots to large-scale location campaigns – each one more ambitious than the last.
A Language of Movement and Mirroring
When Choctaw Casino first approached Aggressive during the height of the pandemic in 2020, the task was clear: create a visually audacious brand campaign that felt as far from ‘traditional hospitality advertising’ as possible. What followed was the start of a long-term creative relationship built on trust, bold visuals, and a shared appetite for pushing boundaries.
The initial campaign, ‘Multiply’, was shot remotely in Warsaw using motion control rigs and layered practical effects to create a world of surreal symmetry, hypercolour studio minimalism and heightened reality.
Riffing on the ‘multiply’ motif, Aggressive conjured up an array of visual illusions and tricks that elevated the initial brief. “That whole language of movement, vivid colour styling and mind-bending visual techniques became part of the brand’s identity,” explains director and co-founder Daniel Shapiro.
And it stuck. To this day, motifs introduced in that first campaign live on in the casino’s branding, across everything from billboard layouts to hotel room keys. Perhaps most importantly, ‘Multiply’ marked the beginning of a highly collaborative creative process, with Aggressive becoming not just a production partner of TRG, but a visual steward for Choctaw’s identity.
One of the standout visual techniques in this latest “What Ifs” campaign was the sense of frozen time. Levitating roulette balls, slow-motion pours, and suspended action scenes – the majority of which is captured practically, in the lens, with the help of an arsenal of practical rigs, props, wires and cables.
Daniel’s co-founder and fellow director, Alex Topaller, talks me through the technical aspect of pulling off this kind of in-camera wizardry. “To start, we simply have our actors hold still (it helps to have talent with some kind of physical stunt or dance training), then we build up the ‘frozen’ world around them, using primarily practical rigs and elements, as well as touches of seamlessly integrated CG. For example, in the dinner scene, we used plexi-stands, wires, and thread to suspend real fine-dining cuisines around the talent. In the lobby check-in scene, we rigged floating suitcases everywhere. To freeze our cocktails mid-cheer, we sculpted gel-acrylic to get the liquid frozen mid-slosh. To give our talent a ‘mid-action’ appearance, we’ll style hair with a zero-gravity flourish or wire up clothing.”
Having been granted a great deal of freedom to explore, Aggressive have leaned into the surreal on every Choctaw project since. In their exploration the team has implemented entirely different approaches each time they have collaborated with the brand – from abstract studio shoots to immersive CG environments and hyper-stylised volume work.
A Stylised Yet Grounded Look
The Choctaw spots have developed a distinct signature look over the last five years: stylised, cinematic, and surreal. Daniel and Alex tell me that the creative philosophy behind each project focuses on amplifying the real architecture and amenities of the resort. That grounding allows Aggressive to layer in visual effects that elevate the work without detaching it from the brand's physical environment. The palette is rich and saturated – bordering on fashion editorial – but not so far that it feels totally unattainable. The result is a unique hybrid feeling of luxury, spectacle and welcoming.
Each campaign showcases Aggressive’s technique-agnostic approach – seamlessly blending live-action, VFX, practical rigs, and cutting-edge technology to serve bold, concept-driven storytelling. When it comes to orchestrating ‘in-the-lens’ special effects, the team has orchestrated cameras swooping through the scene, past rich, real-life detail, which, as Alex puts it, “creates a delightful and immersive quality that draws you in and makes you believe what you’re seeing.”
Daniel tells me how the team achieved the ‘spinning slots’ effect from another spot. “We utilised a custom-built arc-rig that rotates the camera in a circular path around a nodal centre-point, giving the effect that the scene is spinning like the cylinder of a slot machine. We manoeuvred and rebuilt this giant contraption across the entire casino gaming floor, as well as over the swimming pool – it was a thrill to play with.”
In lifting the curtain behind these intricate and innovative feats, it becomes clear that there's a consistent intent to make the impossible feel tangible. While there are visual effects involved, many of the most jaw-dropping moments are built in-camera, with great attention to detail. That dedication to craft pays off in creating an atmosphere that is both oneiric and captivating.
Shooting in a Live Casino
As one would imagine, shooting cinematic spots in a functioning casino is no easy task. Reflecting on the last five years, Alex recalls how each on-location campaign has involved months of pre-production, scouting and meticulous planning to coordinate shoots around live operations, securing drone permissions, and designing practical rigs to achieve the desired effect without disrupting guests.
“Casinos are tricky locations, and there’s a steep learning curve to be able to shoot in one,” he points out. “They’re high-traffic at practically all hours of day and night, are often labyrinthine in construction, and are under heavy scrutiny by the gaming commissions, so it’s key that all logistics, shooting schedules, and details – including fabrication of fake gaming chips and the scheduling of dealers who are authorised to handle the heavily guarded roulette balls – are worked out carefully and beforehand.”
But the client and agency teams have learned to work around those constraints, and often turn them into creative opportunities. Shooting during low-traffic hours or designing mirrored sets that can be quickly flipped for camera reveals are just some of the tactics the crew uses to stay agile.
Having executed several campaigns with Choctaw Casinos, including one while its prestigious Sky Tower hotel was still a construction zone, Aggressive has cultivated a huge amount of working trust, familiarity and mutual respect. This is a crucial tenet of the partnership, as it allows for Aggressive’s team to propose various bold creative concepts, stylised location relighting, visual effects, and in-camera tricks. “If we ask for them to allow us something, they trust that there’s a good reason, and the films will be all the better for it,” says the director.
That trust allows the team to keep innovating visually while staying aligned with the brand’s goals. Whether it's debuting a new hotel tower or promoting the casino's entertainment offerings, each spot builds on the last, iterating rather than repeating.
As the campaigns continue, Aggressive is exploring new ways to push the envelope. The team is looking at real-time rendering tools, volumetric lighting, and interactive set design. But at the core of it all is the same principle that launched ‘Multiply’ in the first place: bold ideas, beautifully executed.
“Honestly I think the most significant thing we’ve achieved with Choctaw and the wonderful team at TRG is a sense of real creative trust, and more importantly, mutual gratitude,” Alex says, smiling. “They have trusted us through numerous campaigns, and have allowed us to play, to innovate, to style, and to push the boundaries in what we can all achieve visually, stylistically, and conceptually, constantly setting the bar higher and higher. We’re excited to keep that trajectory going, to redefine what’s thrilling, what’s captivating, and what’s possible together.”
In Aggressive’s hands, Choctaw Casino has become more than just a resort. It’s now a visual universe – one that keeps expanding with every new campaign.
